As discussed HERE, if you want to speculate on what is fuelling Wiggos tilt this year or the best way to avoid having plasticizers found in your blood samples, do it here.

Let's keep the main thread for talking racing, what Gabriel has turned out for this stage or discussing actual doping issues. Any speculative posts in the main thread, regardless of quality or intent will be binned or secretly edited to make the poster seem foolish.

ThanksShaun

...whatever the road rules, self-preservation is the absolute priority for a cyclist when mixing it with motorised traffic.London Boy 29/12/2011

The past 20 years have been littered with doping scandals at the Tour de France. So it's prudent to be suspicious of Team Sky's performance at this year's TdF. They have totally dominated at the greatest grand tour, as they have done at Paris-Nice, Romandie and the Dauphine. Winning all four has never been achieved in the history of cycling. The are many red flags which point to doping at Team Sky.

1) Unbelievable performances by Froome, Rogers, Porte and Wiggins, with the Team Sky Train mimicking US Postal.

Rogers is putting out his highest power numbers on the climbs, even eclipsing those at Team Mobile (which was implicated in the Freiburg doping clinic). Froome has come from nowhere to beat the best climbers at last year's Vuelta and repeat this performance at the TdF, while beating Cancellera by over 20 sec in the TT. His seems to recover pretty quickly after bouts of the mysterious blood disease (Biharzia) lay him out for weeks on end. Porte was rubbish in the mountains for Saxo Bank and now leads the Sky Train up mountains and then closes down attacks by Nibali. In his Giro, Porte was losing 4-6 mins against Nibali in the steep mountains. Finally, Wiggins. Is he a climber that TTs well or a TT guys that climbs well? The story seems to change frequently. He managed to lose 12kg and excel at both. A frequent retort is that the competition isn't very good at this year's TdF. Sure Contador and Schleck are missing but Evans, Menchov, Nibali, Leipheimer, VdB, etc. are there. There's also an argument that the power numbers of Wiggins and Froome are not super high but that's in comparison to the EPO highs. Wiggins' numbers would still imply an easily sub-40 mins Alpe d'Huez climb which would put him in the top 10 (which is also a list of known dopers).

2) Dubious Team Sky doctor

After having a policy of employing only UK non-cycling doctors for years, Sky did an about face and hired doping doctor Geert Leinders. He was the Rabobank medic that was involved in a doping scandal at the team (Rasmussen, Dekker). Somewhat increduously, Sky argues they hired Leinders because a team soigner passed away from a bacterial infection at the 2010 Vuelta and they needed a doctor with specialist knowledge to stop a repeat! Funnily enough. Leinders isn't at the TdF to look after the safety of the riders (but probably was at the Teneriffe training camps).

3) New "training" methods

Sky has argued they have implemented new training methods which have provided "incremental" gains. One of these is supposedly high altitude training. Yeah, sure, no one has thought of this before! Wiggins has waxed lyrical at the amount of high altitude climbing he did in preparation. The problem is that high altitude training is often used to boost haematocrit levels and provide a high base to defeat the biological passport. Interestingly, Sky met with the ASO just before the TdF and reportedly provided their training data. Perhaps to re-assure the ASO that they weren't doping and wouldn't test positive, when in fact they were indeed blood doping.

4) Lack of transparency

At the beginning, Team Sky sent a strong anti-doping message and offered transparency on these issues. This has all disappeared. From Wiggins' defensive rants when asked about doping, his unwillingness to publish training data (reversing his position of several years ago). Anti-doping journalist Kimmage also believes Sky lacks transparency, citing Wiggins' response to questions on doping, the team doctor issue and Sky cancelling a agreement to allow the journalist to be "imbedded" with the team at the 2010 TdF.

So the multitude of evidence (good luck relying on the doping tests adminstered by the UCI) does indeed point to Team Sky doping. Remember that Bjarne Riis never tested positive at the 1996 TdF but has admitted to doping. Same with Ulrich and a host of others. Lance Armstrong is now only finally being brought to justice.

The use of EPO or similar substances are becoming easier to detect, as in evaluating a blood profile it is easy to see the difference between the age of red blood cells contained in the blood.

With regular EPO use there are more immature red blood cells in the mix regardless of the Haematocrit levels.

The most sensible way forward for any team wishing to dramatically improve their performance would be with gene manipulation well prior to competition, and then to embark upon a long term training regime at high altitude to allow the body time to adjust.

It would also be the way forward for teams starting of with a group of young riders, as their blood passport and performances would not raise any questions.

Unfortunately there is no way that any form of swabbing would detect such methods.

Right now it is a whole new ball game out there in highly paid competitive sports.

I'll be perfectly honest i really don't see the necessity for this thread, this is one of the best moderated forums I've seen and everyone seems to be extremely balanced in letting others have there say. Doping is apart of this sport it is topical and i just hope that by strictly limiting what can be discussed on a racing thread (particularly as wide in its scope as the 2012 TDF ) we dont kill off some of the variety . Also I've seen were doping threads have been created elsewhere it becomes a breading ground for Trolls and flair ups. Anyway play nice guys

We are stuck with technology when what we really want is just stuff that works (Douglas Adams)

I must say that Wiggo and co have been looking very comfortable on the climbs, and look to be being careful not to do too much.

For example, Wiggo has sat on Cadel's wheel crossing the finish line on one of the climbing stages when Cadel tried to drop him, and at other times seemed content to sit on his wheel knowing his TT performance had provided a handy lead. He looked like he had a fair bit left in reserve each time.

It seems quite possible to me that he could have outgunned Cadel if he had wished to, but is taking care not to show too much lest it show his hand and start raising too many questions.

On the other hand, Cadel is getting older and maybe he just peaked last year.

"If I doped I would potentially stand to lose everything. It's a long list. My reputation, my livelihood, my marriage, my family, my house. Everything I have achieved, my Olympic medals, my world titles, the CBE I was given. I would have to take my children to the school gates in a small Lancashire village with everyone looking at me, knowing I had cheated, knowing I had, perhaps, won the Tour de France, but then been caught."

"If I doped I would potentially stand to lose everything. It's a long list. My reputation, my livelihood, my marriage, my family, my house. Everything I have achieved, my Olympic medals, my world titles, the CBE I was given. I would have to take my children to the school gates in a small Lancashire village with everyone looking at me, knowing I had cheated, knowing I had, perhaps, won the Tour de France, but then been caught."

I believe him, just disappointed that he has had to face down such negativity.

Porte cant climb, oh year he did break Cadels time up mt wellington before turning pro, oh and i'm sure that racing miles over several years don't make you fitter and a better climber, there is no way he could be better than last year

iaintas wrote:Porte cant climb, oh year he did break Cadels time up mt wellington before turning pro, oh and i'm sure that racing miles over several years don't make you fitter and a better climber, there is no way he could be better than last year

Porte did it fresh as a time trial while Evans did it as a mountain top finish at the end of a stage when he was a mountain biker. So apples and oranges. Porte in the 2010 Giro lost 4-6 mins in the high mountain stages and was rubbish in the mountains for Contador in 2011. He sure has been transformed by Sky's "incremental gains".

biker jk wrote:...So the multitude of evidence (good luck relying on the doping tests adminstered by the UCI) does indeed point to Team Sky doping. Remember that Bjarne Riis never tested positive at the 1996 TdF but has admitted to doping. Same with Ulrich and a host of others. Lance Armstrong is now only finally being brought to justice.

There is not one whit of evidence in that entire post, just supposition and innuendo.

biker jk wrote:...So the multitude of evidence (good luck relying on the doping tests adminstered by the UCI) does indeed point to Team Sky doping. Remember that Bjarne Riis never tested positive at the 1996 TdF but has admitted to doping. Same with Ulrich and a host of others. Lance Armstrong is now only finally being brought to justice.

There is not one whit of evidence in that entire post, just supposition and innuendo.

Agree, and lets not forget sky have 3 guys that could likely be GC riders in other teams and one guy that was gunning for yellow a few years ago before being knocked out by a crash. Guys work on specifics and this is likely the case for Richie and Rogers (both have been working on climbing from all reports) and this probably shows by Richie Porte's decline in TT ability, Rogers has always been good in a TT and the course didn't suite cancellara (and his form is not what it used to be), Froome, well he has long been a pretty good TT rider, and didnt he start on the MTB so no reason he shouldn't climb well. And as for Froome's quick recovery "the mystery blood disease" from bilharzia parasites, i am pretty sure have EPO would not make a lick of difference to the recovery time, probably more likely his Doctor was onto it quickly and he was treated accordingly

biker jk wrote:...So the multitude of evidence (good luck relying on the doping tests adminstered by the UCI) does indeed point to Team Sky doping. Remember that Bjarne Riis never tested positive at the 1996 TdF but has admitted to doping. Same with Ulrich and a host of others. Lance Armstrong is now only finally being brought to justice.

There is not one whit of evidence in that entire post, just supposition and innuendo.

Which piece of evidence pointing to Team Sky doping do you dispute? If you're waiting for a doping positive it could be several years or not at all (Armstrong, Ulrich, Riis). I find it interesting that Wiggins won't publish his blood parameters like he did at Garmin.

biker jk wrote:...So the multitude of evidence (good luck relying on the doping tests adminstered by the UCI) does indeed point to Team Sky doping. Remember that Bjarne Riis never tested positive at the 1996 TdF but has admitted to doping. Same with Ulrich and a host of others. Lance Armstrong is now only finally being brought to justice.

There is not one whit of evidence in that entire post, just supposition and innuendo.

Which piece of evidence pointing to Team Sky doping do you dispute? If you're waiting for a doping positive it could be several years or not at all (Armstrong, Ulrich, Riis). I find it interesting that Wiggins won't publish his blood parameters like he did at Garmin.

I do not dispute anything in your post except your contention that it is evidence.

The whole situation with the Sky team is that no matter what sort of challenges are placed on that team they just keep going and going.

At the same time they give every indication that there is a lot more fuel in the tank than what has been on display to date, and almost seem hesitant to really get stuck into it and show what they can really do.

All this does set alarm bells ringing no matter which way you look at it.

Evidence?

If they have done what I believe is possible with current scientific advances in relation to gaining an illegal physical advantage, I cannot see that any evidence will ever be found that will point to doping, unless someone “spills the beans”.

greyhoundtom wrote:If they have done what I believe is possible with current scientific advances in relation to gaining an illegal physical advantage, I cannot see that any evidence will ever be found that will point to doping, unless someone “spills the beans”.

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